The Apple by Devashish Sardana

Author:Devashish Sardana [Sardana, Devashish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER-16

Did I Tell You about My Dreams?

I stare at Azura. “So, I am a prisoner held for ransom? Then what was all that initiation charade? The opening ceremony with God Saraph. This access to ‘Queen’ Azura. Why not just keep me in a cell and let me rot in there, till Arthur, my supposed uncle, comes and exchanges me for your husband?”

Azura smiles. “Like I was saying, one could say you are being held at ransom. But you are not. You are one of us now. A Sentinel. I told you my story because I want you to understand the past. Because some day in the future, you may regain your memory. That day you will question your identity and choose - the Sentinels or Arthur.”

Azura leans forward and touches my hand as if offering a truce. “I want you to choose us. This is your future. This is where you belong. Memory or not, I don’t want you to forget who you are NOW.”

I am stumped. “Oh…” I barely manage to utter a word.

We both sit in silence for a while, absorbed in our thoughts.

I ask, “At the waterfall, before the initiation, you had said I came here and stole something precious. You hadn’t mentioned what. Did I steal the fruit of immortality from the Garden of Eden?”

Azura looks at me, her face expressionless. With a slow, forced movement, she nods.

“Is that why I survived the gunshot? Because I am immortal?”

Azura’s face explodes into laughter. I look around embarrassingly, waiting for her to stop.

“I am just checking.” I try to explain myself.

“I am sorry to have to break it to you, but you are not immortal.” She manages to say. “You really should thank Ayurvaid Yoni for her gift of medicine, not the fruit of immortality that you stole.”

I sheepishly rub my head. “Clear. Not immortal.”

Azura regains her composure. “If you must know, you stole an apple from the Garden of Eden. I want you to tell me where you hid the apple, when you remember.”

“A real apple?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How does it matter then? It was plucked from the tree. It would have gone bad by now anyway.”

Azura’s eyes light up. “No, it will not go bad even if plucked from the tree. It is enchanted. Like the gift of immortality that the apple contains, the fire of life keeps burning in it. It dies and rots after it transfers immortal life to whomsoever, man or animal, eats the fruit.”

“Are you immortal, Azura?”

She grins. “No. The Sentinels are the protectors. We are forbidden to even touch the fruit. You don’t devour what you protect.”

“You are telling me no one in your history was ever seduced by the power of the fruit. No one has slipped up, ever?”

“Only once. Millennia ago. The tale of that treachery haunts every Sentinel even today. Our kids grow up listening to that story, keeping the fear alive and palpable in our community.”

“What happened?”

“Six thousand years ago, the first Commander of the Sentinel army was enamored with the apple.

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